ghosts of 1984 cannot be exorcised unless the victims get full justice

The Hindu
April 13, 2009

Editorial

Exorcising 1984

Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar might want to attribute their current miseries to a shoe hurled by an attention-seeking Sikh journalist. But the protests by large sections of the Sikh community against the allotment of Lok Sabha tickets to the two Congress leaders have their genesis in an atrocious official cover-up that reflects very poorly on the Indian criminal justice system. A sloppy and non-serious process of investigation and prosecution meant that the perpetrators of the genocidal violence against thousands of innocent Sikhs in the wake of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination, on October 31, 1984, by her Sikh bodyguards have gone scot-free. The killing spree by Congress activists and supporters, allegedly orchestrated and led by some party leaders, left 2,733 people dead in Delhi alone. But after two Commissions of Inquiry and eight committees set up to probe various aspects of the horrific violence, and prolonged trials, only 13 persons have been convicted (and one declared a proclaimed offender). As during Gujarat’s genocidal anti-Muslim pogrom of 2002, there were clear indications of complicity by the police and the official machinery in the terror unleashed. The Congress as a party has also found it difficult to live down Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s notorious rationalisation of what happened: “there are always tremors when a great tree falls.” The Indian experience is that law enforcers and investigating agencies almost invariably incline towards the ruling establishment. This meant that with a Congress government in power for 10 of the next 12 years, the victims of 1984 never got within smelling distance of justice.

Actually, several of the committees indicted Congress leader H.K.L. Bhagat and Messrs Tytler and Sajjan Kumar for their alleged roles in the 1984 massacre. The Nanavati Commission concluded that there was “credible evidence” against Mr. Tytler and that “very probably” he had a hand in organising the attacks. However, in its Action Taken Report, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government took the stand that a person could not be prosecuted merely on the basis of “probability.” Quite predictably, the Central Bureau of Investigation — India’s premier but patently non-independent criminal investigation agency — has concluded that it did not have sufficient evidence to prosecute Mr. Tytler. But after the controversy erupted, the CBI, which did not raise any jurisdictional issues when it filed a charge sheet in 2006 and a closure report in 2007, suddenly challenged the Metropolitan Magistrate’s power to hear the case. Such clumsy efforts to help the ruling party wriggle out of messy situations have further eroded the agency’s credibility. By dumping Messrs Tytler and Sajjan Kumar, the Congress has done some damage control but what it needs to realise is that the ghosts of 1984 cannot be exorcised unless the victims get full justice.